The Australian troupe Chunky Move performed its 2004 work I Want to Dance Better at Parties at Boston’s Institute of Contemporary Art from March 27 to 29. It’s part documentary narrative, part comedy, part kinetic metaphor about the pleasures and terrors of social dancing.

The show developed out of interviews choreographer Gideon Obarzanek conducted with five guys around Melbourne, where the company is based. The fellows tell their stories in voice-overs. The title comes from a man left lonely after his wife has died.“It was great fun dancing with you," a woman he dances with at a party tells him, "but you ought to learn to move your shoulders or your butt a bit.” So he takes ballroom and Latin dance lessons, but they’re too formal. He realizes, “I want to learn how to dance at parties.” And he does. Ultimately the show’s about men, their bodies, and love.

The performance moves from country western clogging to traditional Israeli dancing to a scene in which deeply-breathing dancers seem to inflate and deflate like holiday lawn ornaments. The moment that sticks in my head: A woman swaying to a slithery, sultry belly dance gets tackled by a guy flying out of the wings. And a brawl erupts.Photos by Greg Cook

Swoon takes her street art to the ICA 'Wall' Part punk-rock activist, part classically trained artist, Swoon, a/k/a Caledonia Curry, has sailed the Mississippi with a merry gang on homemade rafts and created earthquake-resistant structures for Haiti.

Swoon takes her street art to the ICA 'Wall' Part punk-rock activist, part classically trained artist, Swoon, a/k/a Caledonia Curry, has sailed the Mississippi with a merry gang on homemade rafts and created earthquake-resistant structures for Haiti.

Eva Hesse at the ICA and Tory Fair at the deCordova Hesse's ability to imbue her art with body and blood and gravity anticipated the kinder, gentler minimalism of today's Anish Kapoor, Rachel Whiteread, and Roni Horn, as well as the fleshy fairy-tale figures of Kiki Smith. Boston sculptor Tory Fair has descended from Smith's family tree, with glossy resin or lumpy rubber casts of her own nude body uncannily sprouting vines and flowers.

The Floordlords celebrate 30 years B-boys — b-girls had scant presence on this program — have gone commercial, but today's freestyle breaking technique builds on moves cut three decades ago (although a grainy Floordlords video indicates that the current generation has discarded stirrup pants for profanity-laced t-shirts).

Swoon indoors and out Swoon is one of the most celebrated street artists in the US, so why does her wall of bugs and monsters inside the Institute of Contemporary Art feel so meh?

Review: Rubberbandance at the ICA Hip-hop, in common with tap dancing, can look like a succession of tricks when it's not grounded by a story or a great personality.